Waxworks: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

A nice shot of the museum as the game comes to a close.

         

Waxworks

United Kingdom

HorrorSoft (developer); Accolade (publisher)

Released in 1992 for Amiga and DOS

Date Started: 11 June 2019

Date Finished: 23 June 2019

Total Hours: 17
Difficulty: Moderate-hard (3.5/5)
Final Rating: 26
Ranking at time of posting: 153/343 (45%)

     
Summary:
Waxworks is a first-person adventure game with some RPG elements. The protagonist enters his late uncle's wax museum and must travel through time via four exhibits: an ancient Egyptian pyramid, a zombie-infested graveyard in 15th-century Wallachia, 19th-century London on the night of Jack the Ripper's latest murder, and a 20th-century mine taken over by a malevolent plant. In each scenario, he inhabits the body of a "good" twin who must stop his evil brother; the culmination of his efforts will end a witch's ancient curse on the protagonist's family. The game uses the same engine that HorrorSoft built for three previous titles, including the two Elvira games (1990 and 1991). While the graphics have been improved from Elvira and Elvira II, the RPG elements have been lessened. The character gains experience and max hit points as he explores and fights, but he loses it all between scenarios. Combat difficulty is extremely erratic and really only applies to two scenarios anyway. The driving game element here is inventory-based puzzle solving. The game is notable for its gruesome death scenes, of which there are several dozen.
       
*****
       

I began Waxworks hoping that, unfettered from Elvira, HorrorSoft would be able to make a better game. Alas. Elvira and Elvira II not only had more interesting settings but better RPG elements, including attributes, a spell system, and RPG equipment other than just a primary weapon. None of these elements were great in the Elvira games, but Waxworks mostly abandoned them entirely. Sure, it has leveling, but I'm not even convinced that leveling is that important. 

         

The area of the London scenario as given in the game.

The modern equivalent in London.

        

The last two levels were a bit harder, I thought, than the first two. But I largely solved them the same way: Upon arriving in each scenario, I just assumed I wouldn't last long. I concentrated on mapping and annotating as much of each area as possible, identifying items and puzzles, reloading upon death. Once I couldn't map anymore and had a few puzzles I knew I could solve, I'd reload from the beginning and try a bit harder with the next character, until I finally found the right sequence to get through the level.

One thing I learned from the graveyard and its broken railing was to turn and face every wall and then run the mouse cursor around it, ensuring that the name of some barely-visible object didn't pop up in the view window. Without this method, I wouldn't have found numerous items in the mine level, where the walls have (to me) such a uniform color that I can barely pick out any detail.

         

Winning this scenario required me to notice that this small section of this support is burned.

        

The "Jack the Ripper" scenario had the character running around the streets of London, trying to intercept his brother, Jack, before he could murder another prostitute. The primary difficulty involves dodging MPS patrolmen and random mobs, both of which execute you the moment they step into your squares. Since these enemies start approaching from the moment you enter the scenario, you're encouraged to flee the scene of the murder immediately. This has implications.

          

I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work there, gov'na.

         

Unlike the other three scenarios, there are no battles to fight in this one until the end. Instead, you run around invading houses and offices and assembling an inventory kit, none of which seems to lead anywhere. I got stuck entirely and had to look up a hint. It turns out that in the very first screen--the one you're encouraged to leave on the double--there's a barely-visible "bag" on the ground that belonged to the victim.

          

And I think I'm being generous with "barely-visible."

         

When you open the bag, you find a diary, which leads to a story that suggests the last few victims have been deliberately baiting Jack in order to catch him.

            

That seems like a bad idea.

         

The first victim's diary gives the name of another prostitute, whom you have to find by paying a pickpocket to relieve a pimp of his address book. After that, you track down the prostitute--Molly Parkin--in a wharfhouse, just before Jack is about to kill her. You duel Jack with a dueling cane--the scenario's one weapon--and (after a couple of reloads, in my case), stab him through the heart and toss his body into the Thames. Bright light, back to the Waxworks.

         

Sword-fighting with the Ripper.

         

My last scenario, into which I was again rudely shoved by Boris's butler, suggests that the "evil twin" has somehow turned into a hideous mutated plant and taken over a mine. His tendrils and spores cover the walls of the mine, sometimes resolving into deadly vines and pods. He excretes some kind of toxin that converts the miners into walking plant zombies. The character deaths are more horrific here than in any of the previous scenarios, including one animation in which vines rip the character's head off.

          

Trust me, you want to thank me for not putting an animated GIF here.

        

Melee combat is nearly impossible on this level, and I suspect the player isn't supposed to do it at all. Early on, you find a canister of weed-killer which reliably works on anything deadly in the mine. When it runs out, you can replace it with gasoline. As long as you have a lighter in your possession, too (found in the first square), the canister works as a flame-thrower. Once you know where these things are, you don't have to fight melee combat except once or twice after the game forces you to give the canister to an NPC for a while.

       

Fire-balling a plant monster.

        

The scenario consists of a single small level that takes a while because of backtracking. One key puzzle involves a mining cart that rolls along the tracks after you've gone a particular distance east. You have to stop the cart with a length of wood, but you have to do it in precisely the right square, or the cart ends up blocking at least one vital passage. The worst part is that you might trigger the cart without even knowing it because you move down a side passage before the cart comes into view. I went through the scenario twice only to find the cart blocking the exit both times and not understanding how it got there or what I was supposed to do about it.

The mine scenario involves true NPC conversations, with dialogue options, for the first time. A wounded professor is in the first square, in a broken elevator carriage, begging for a doctor. The player has to find a blowtorch and a welder's mask to free some captives from a cage. A doctor agrees to look at the professor; a soldier agrees to help demolish the mine if the player can find the right items; and an electrician agrees to fix the elevator so everyone can escape safely.

        

Getting ready to escape with all my NPC friends.

         

You have to find two gas masks and protective suits--one for you, one for the soldier--to safely enter the evil twin's chambers. In a gruesome sequence, the player pokes out all the monster's eyes before he and the soldier plant 8 sticks of dynamite in the monster's chambers. The healer revives the professor, who provides an antidote to heal the electrician, who fixes the elevator, which you ride to the top of the shaft just after detonating the dynamite. It took me about 15 reloads to get the sequence completely right.

          

Sorry, brother.

          

Once you finish the fourth scenario, you find yourself back at the Waxworks. One more exhibit--the witch--is unveiled. The butler gives you four magic artifacts from the previous exhibits: an amulet, a ring, a knife, and a bottle of poison. (The butler is polite as he greets you, but I must note that he keeps shoving you to the final exhibit.) Uncle Boris explains exactly what to do with them once you return to the witch's time: wear the amulet to avoid the witch's spells, toss the poison at her to distract her, find a weapon and attack her, when she's down, stab her in the throat with the knife, and escape back with the magic ring. 

           

Lurch welcomes us back for the finale.

        

The final scenario has just one screen, and that's pretty much exactly what you do. The weapon you find is a crossbow. If you're not quick enough with any of the steps, she's able to cast the curse and you lose.

         

This is a lot of drama over a chicken.

       

Even winning feels pretty dirty, as the game graphically depicts you shooting the old woman--who's just had her hand chopped off!--in the eye with a crossbow bolt, then stabbing her in the throat several times with Jack the Ripper's knife. Brutal.

      

And right then, we shoot her in the face.

      

Assuming you do it right, you return to the Waxworks to find Alex huddled in the corner. He wakes up and relates a "dream" in which after you killed the witch, she "muttered something" and you "turned into a demon with horns and hoofs." This is perhaps setting up a sequel in which a different curse turned the protagonist evil, but I guess we'll never know.

         

1. Does Alex somehow not realize that he's still a teenager while I've grown up? 2. Does he look a little like Zach Gilligan?

           

In a GIMLET, I give the game:

             

• 5 points for the game world. You have to admit, we haven't seen anything quite like it.

• 1 point for character creation and development. There's no creation, and "development" is just an accumulation of levels and an increase in maximum hit points. Only two of the scenarios have regular RPG-style combat, so this type of development hardly matters. Plus, you lose it all in between scenarios.

• 3 points for NPC interaction. They're mostly limited to the mine scenario, but it is fun to see some RPG-style dialogue and to make NPCs part of the puzzle-solving process.

         

An NPC professor has a lot to say about the plant monster in the last scenario.

          

• 4 points for encounters and foes. Despite the name of the category, for this type of game I typically use it to rate puzzles, and that's what I'm doing here. They are neither the best nor worst adventure-game puzzles I've experienced.

• 1 point for magic and combat. I found myself missing the magic system of Elvira II as I repeatedly slashed at creatures. There are really no tactics in combat, and too much of the outcomes is based on luck.

          

Slashing at a plant monster with a metal rod.

        

• 1 point for equipment. There's plenty of it, but it's all adventure-style puzzle-solving stuff. On the RPG side, the best the game did is occasionally give you the choice of weapon.

           

Some screens offer way too much stuff to pick up, most of it useless.

         

• 0 points for no economy.

• 2 points for a main quest with no side-quests and no decisions.

• 5 points for graphics, sound, and interface. Graphics are very nice--but that's only worth a few points in this category. Sound effects are sparse. People who like music will probably like the music. The dual keyboard/mouse controls work okay, but the buttons should have had keyboard backups. 

            

This is one of a few games where you deliberately die a lot, just to see the death animations.

          

• 4 points for gameplay. It gets a little credit for nonlinearity, although there is something of an "obvious" order and I don't consider the game "replayable" just because you can try again in a different order of scenarios. The difficulty wasn't too bad, and the length was just about exactly right.

           

That gives us a final score of 26, worse than the 29 I gave the Elvira titles.

             

Tip: if you want people to believe you're really providing a "parental warning" instead of an extra selling point, leave off the exclamation point.

          

Almost none of those 26 points are particular to RPGs. Remove the RPG categories entirely, and it would still get a 23. Thus, the moment I was finished, I hustled over to "The Adventure Gamer" to see what they thought of the title. Deimar reviewed it not even a year ago (first entry in November 2018; last in January 2019). He had many of the same problems that I did, particularly with backtracking and having trouble finding items ("for the most part, the puzzles are based on the worst kind of pixel hunting"). In the end, he gave it a 47/100, which was higher than the site gave Elvira II but not the original Elvira.

            

I didn't think it was worth extra points, but the hint system in the game worked pretty well.

        

Waxworks was covered in the February 1993 Computer Gaming World by Chuck Miller. His review annoys me even though he basically feels the same way I feel about the game (lukewarm). It annoys me first because he admits he didn't finish it; I guess CGW dropped that requirement at some point. But there are two other quotes that particularly irk me:

1. "Waxworks does have several weaknesses, the chief being the lack of an automapping feature, an amenity which has become standard fare for CRPGs of recent origin. Most role-playing games have become complex enough that it is simply too distracting and time consuming for the player to map each step as he or she goes The time has arrived to lay pencil and graph paper to rest." If that time does come, I would argue that it will come when games no longer have discrete squares. Waxworks still operates on tiles, and the levels are pretty tiny. An automap would arguably make the game harder because the player really needs to annotate items and puzzles, and it's questionable whether an automap would do that effectively.

2. "How does Waxworks fare as a CRPG? Well, better than most, but lacking in relation to some." What?! I'd accept that statement if you replaced "CRPG" with "adventure game"--and mostly because I don't have a solid gauge on adventure games. Does Miller even know what a CRPG is? Has he ever played a tabletop RPG? This game is at best an adventure game with a dab of RPG frosting. I'm surprised the review keeps referring to it as an "RPG" at all. And he thinks it's better than most?

Deimar felt that the plot followed Elvira II too closely ("if you were to change the twin brother to Elvira, the plot would be basically the same"). I see what he means: Elvira II also had several discrete "scenarios," culminating in a ritual that required you to do several things in a precise order. But I'm more intrigued by the hypothesis, raised in the comments section of my first entry, that the game began as a licensed tie-in to the 1988 film Waxwork and its 1992 sequel, Waxwork II: Lost in Time. The first film involves a wax museum owner, played by David Warner, who has collected artifacts from the "18 most evil people who ever lived." He invites people to the wax museum to get sucked into the exhibits and thus lose their souls to the various evil individuals, thus granting power to the museum owner. The exhibits include one sent in ancient Egypt (where the hero must rescue his girlfriend from a sarcophagus), the Marquis de Sade (not appearing here but mentioned in the manual), and a zombie horde. The second film includes an exhibit with Jack the Ripper. There's a tall, hollow-cheeked butler in the first film that resembles the one in the game. If Waxworks wasn't a licensed title, they sure were inviting legal action.

          

The designer's last name is spelled "Woodruff" almost everywhere else I see it, including in several prominent magazine interviews, but I have to go with what the game's own credits use.

        

The idea is given credence by a February 1992 interview with HorrorSoft co-owner and designer Mike Woodroffe that appeared in the British game magazine Zero (thanks to commenter EonFafnir for digging this up). In his first sentences, Woodroffe suggests a direct relationship with the film before seeming to correct himself: "Waxworks, which we're doing with Accolade, is based on the film of the same name. Well, not "based" so much . . . inspired, really. It's inspired by the film." You can almost see him picturing his lawyer's reaction after the first sentence. The interview also suggests that the game originally had more than four exhibits. "There'll be Jack the Ripper, numerous kings and queens, a pyramid, the Marquis de Sade . . . There'll also be triffids." I can't stop imagining the great discussions we would have had about the Marquis de Sade and the game's decision to make him "evil."

Also worth noting is a failed attempt last year to fund a "special edition" of the game via Kickstarter. It was canceled in January 2019 after falling short of its goal. I'm not going to speculate on the reason it failed, but I will say that if you're going to have a section titled "success of the original game," showing and prominently circling scores of 70%, 78%, and 80% doesn't really help your case.

This is the last we'll see of this team, whose Simon the Sorcerer series does not have any RPG aspirations. Back we go to Darklands while I start to investigate an intriguing SSI game called Prophecy of the Shadow.

Waxworks: Hammer and Sickle

Sometimes the game is more fun for its gruesome death images than from actually defeating the challenges.

          

I've solved two of the four or more Waxworks scenarios, and started to explore a third, and it's a measure of the game that I have no idea what to expect from the last. Waxworks seems to delight in changing the rules between scenarios, which is good for variety's sake, although I haven't found any of the scenarios so far terribly challenging or compelling.

The first one had me explore a six-level pyramid, with each level getting smaller as it went up (just as in the recent Beneath the Pyramids). There were branches here and there, but in general the pyramid's levels were linear enough that I didn't have to map. I died about a thousand times, with 950 of those deaths due to tripwire traps, which you have to click on and "avoid" every time you cross. No matter how many times I told myself to watch out for them, no matter how many times I thought I remembered the positions of specific ones, I just kept setting them off.

The rolling-rock traps are unavoidable but also easy to dodge. You just have to dart down a nearby hallway when you see the rock coming. If you back up, you can easily outrun it.
           

The rock rolls harmlessly by as I hide in a side passage.

            

The levels had a fair share of spear-wielding guards and dagger-wielding priests, and my survival against them was mostly luck. Among the six levels, you're limited to the hit points you start with, those you develop by leveling, and another 40 or so that you can restore by having Uncle Boris create the scrolls for you. Combat, meanwhile, is just a matter of activating it and clicking around the screen. For the pyramid, I wasn't able to detect that a particular area of the screen resulted in a greater chance of hitting, or more damage, nor was I able to determine whether choosing a variety of attacks had more success than just spamming the same attack over and over. There was a clear escalation in weapons--dagger, sword, spear--and the enemies definitely went down faster as my level increased.

That level is the only thing that really qualifies the game as an RPG. I like that you get experience points for every square you step on; it encourages full exploration. But in the pyramid, where the experience was so linear, any sense of "leveling" is really illusory, since every player will pretty much reach every stage at the same level.
           

I misread the room.

I failed to get out of the way.

I took too long.

I fell in with the wrong crowd.

       

It turned out not to matter that I loaded up my inventory with everything not nailed down. You have no encumbrance statistic and no maximum number of items, and carrying a bunch of redundant pots actually helped at one point. You just have to take care not to accidentally stick new items in jars or baskets, because you then have to spend half an hour looking into every one that you have to find it.

That leaves the puzzles. One recurring puzzle required me to find a series of tuning forks and then use them to shatter glass walls. The tuning forks all had different frequencies, and I thought there might be some complex puzzle associated with that, but the game never made use of the frequencies as such. Different tuning forks shattered different walls and that was it.
          

Captured this screenshot just at the right time.

         

I also had to watch out for blocks propped up by wooden beams and collapse those beams with a hammer, thus causing blocks to fall from upper levels and clear the passages. There were a couple of points at which it was possible to put myself on the wrong side of the passage before collapsing it, and thus end up in a "walking dead" situation. In fact, there are enough walking dead situations in the game to require a careful approach to saving, and in particular keeping a save from the last time you were in the Waxworks in case you have to start over completely.
            

Collapsing the passage.

           

Level 1's major puzzle involved a pool of water where I needed to fill up some jugs, so I could pour the water on some hot coals on Level 2. Messing with the water got me attacked and killed by a crocodile, so I had to find a way to lure the crocodile out of the water while I held my spear ready. The only thing that made sense for bait was a pile of entrails I'd found in one of the jars. By dropping that on the tile before the water, I was able to entice the croc out of the pool and then kill him with a thrown spear.
            

See ya later.

        

We already saw the door puzzle between Levels 1 and 2. The major obstacle here, other than the many traps and guards, was that square of burning coals. The game did me a favor by filling up all my jugs with water on Level 1, so I had enough (it turned out I needed 5) to cool the coals instead of making me fill, say, three, and then realize I didn't have enough, and have to trudge back and forth multiple times.

The transition between Level 2 and Level 3 had a door puzzle in which I had to twist a series of valves to divert a flow of water into a preferred jug (with an ankh symbol on it), filling it faster than the jugs with snakes on them. It really couldn't have been easier. I just had to trace the pipes backwards and turn the valves accordingly.
         

An easy puzzle.

      

Level 3's big challenge--again, after traps and enemies--was to weigh down a pot and thus open a door. There was no more obvious object to weigh down the pot than two piles of sand I'd previously found in some corridor. Thus must have been an introductory level.

Level 4 had a couple of obstacles. One required me to knock down a bridge by shooting it with a bow and arrow, but again the choice was fairly obvious. Later, I had to cross an area of tiles by stepping on the right hieroglyphic tiles. This one took me a few minutes to suss out. A message said to "follow the path of life."

The only other hieroglyphics I'd seen were on a piece of papyrus from the first chamber. Each row of tiles, from which I had to choose one to step on, had two tiles that were on the piece of paper and one tile that was not. I figured the trick was to step on the one that was not, and that did get me safely across the room. Only later, when I thought about it, did I realize the game's logic. The specific arrangement of the hieroglyphics on the papyrus didn't matter; what mattered is that they were all associated with Anubis, the god of death, and thus the "path of life" would take me across symbols not associated with him. That's reasonably clever.
         

Crossing the perilous floor.

         

On Level 5, I was almost immediately stymied by a puzzle in which gas started filling the corridors and the exits were closed off. I found a "mirror" on one wall, but it threw me for a while because it seemed to show a picture of a guard. I realized well after I should have that the "picture" was actually my image in the mirror. I'm not me in these exhibits; rather, I have taken possession of the "good" brother, who in this case is a pyramid guard named Cassim. This was all explained later when I made more liberal use of Boris's head. I had been conserving my "psy," but I realized later that I was just wasting it.
          

This is supposed to be me?

         

Solving the gas puzzle involved shattering the mirror, which of course was done with a collection of the tuning forks, something that should have been more obvious.

       

Later on Level 5, I reached a couple of rooms with murals on the walls--very nice murals, I should add. Graphically, Waxworks can be lovely. The two consecutive murals on the south walls all produced hollow sounds when tapped, so I realized I could smash through them with my weapon to reveal chambers beyond. The first one had a piece of tile that, when I picked it up, released snakes into the room. I couldn't fight the snakes and they killed me. The solution was to spill oil all over the floor and ignite it before picking up the piece, so that the snakes emerged into an inferno.
               

A treasure room holds only a couple relevant items.

            

The transition between Levels 5 and 6 required me to arrange four tiles (which I'd picked up at various places along the way, the first three without any fuss) in a particular order. I never found anything that helped me determine the order, but there were only 24 possibilities, and I got it after about 6.

On Level 6, I rescued my princess by opening her sarcophagus with a scarab beetle found all the way back in the first room. She oddly ended up in my inventory, which was also what happened to Elvira in Elvira II.
            

I don't mean to complain, but her face looks rather masculine.

         
To finish off the level, I had to balance a scale using a series of weights I'd picked up in various places throughout the pyramid. It took me a while to realize that the weights are not all the same weight; by examining them, you see that they are "very light," "light," "heavy, "very heavy," and "extremely heavy." The puzzle still took a while longer because it didn't occur to me that you might be able to solve it without using all the weights. I believe the solution had the extremely heavy and light weights on one side, the heavy and very heavy ones on the other, and no use of the very light weight.

            

Trying to figure out a balancing puzzle while "my betrothed" sits in my inventory.

           

Solving the weight puzzle opened a door where I confronted and killed my evil twin brother, then exited the world somehow by putting a brooch into a hole on a statue's belly.
           

A nice final shot of Egypt before we leave.

         

I was not prepared for my accumulated experience and levels to drain away the moment I left ancient Egypt. But that's what happens: in between each of the scenarios (at least, I assume the pattern continues), everything resets to 0. Your inventory also disappears, too, which is more of a blessing. I guess it really doesn't matter, then, which order you experience the exhibits because there's no way to save the harder ones for when you're stronger. I guess I get the logic, but it's another blow to Waxworks as an RPG.
            

Hey! Don't you work for me now?!

        

When I returned to the waxworks, Uncle Boris's butler became weirdly hostile, pushing me down the corridors and trying to shove me into any exhibit I happened to come across. I had to run ahead of him to enter the exhibit of my choosing, which was the undead graveyard.
          

Transitioning between areas.

       

This was a very different experience, and I wasn't prepared for how different it was. Instead of multiple levels, it occupied only one "level" about the same size as the first level of the pyramid. It had only a couple of puzzles and was, overall, a lot shorter than the first challenge.

What it did have is zombies. Dozens of them. They pop out of the ground right in front of you, and I don't think you can ever kill them all. You only have (or I only found) one weapon to fight them: a sickle. To kill a zombie, you first have to chop off one arm, then the other, then its head, so the locations that you click do make a major difference in these combats.
     

I'm not sure why I couldn't have gone right for the head.

       
A lesser challenge, but perhaps more annoying, was simply mapping the area. Gravestones serve as "walls" within the cemetery, but it's very hard to visually judge how close you can walk to them and exactly where you can turn and move forward. While you're dithering around trying to find paths, zombies are appearing around every corner.
           

Is it clear to you that you can move one step forward here? Because you can.

        

If you find the heart from a dead woman in the middle of the cemetery, Boris can use it to heal you once during the adventure. Since your hit points are thus finite, you want to avoid combat as much as possible, which is hard when you're trying to comprehensively explore the map. Eventually, I just resigned myself to dying a lot of times while I mapped, and to then complete the level after a final reload.

There were three major puzzles in the area. The first required me to get access to the family crypt, for which I needed some tool to exploit a hole. Uncle Boris's head suggested I search the fence around the graveyard for a loose bit of railing. I'm glad I consulted him because I absolutely never would have found that on my own. It's hard to find even if you know what you're looking for.
           

You have to be facing a particular direction. Even then, it wouldn't have occurred to me that you can pick up that broken piece of iron. It looks like it's still attached.

         
Once inside the crypt, I was able to speak to my ancestor Druec, who somehow knew I was from the future and not the original inhabitant of the body before him. He confirmed Uncle Boris's accounts of the curse and said that in the current time, Vladimir had bound the souls of his forebears, not allowing them to die, using their energy to fuel his necromantic rituals.
          

Conversing with the first generation of cursed.

        
Boris said he could break Vladimir's spell, but he would need an "absorbent material." This turned out to be a hunk of bread, found in an altar in a chapel in the far northwest corner of the map. A vampire guarded it, but I'd found a stake on the way, sharpened it with the sickle, and pounded it into the vampire's chest the moment he appeared.
          

As I put the stake to his heard, the vampire appears to be regretting life.

          
Vladimir himself was just up a stairway from the chapel, but he was impervious to physical attack and killed me. Boris, meanwhile, had to fashion his counter-spell within the family crypt, so I had to trudge back through most of the map, killing zombies along the way. In the crypt, Boris completed the spell and told me to activate it, I should simply touch Vladimir. I turned around and walked back through the graveyard again, fighting more zombies.
       

This game is about to offer an interesting take on "destroy."

       
In my best run, I still made it back to the chapel with only a few hit points to spare. Boris said I should "touch" Vladimir, so I equipped my hands as weapons and poked him in the chest. For reasons I don't fully understand, touching him caused him to collapse into a baby. Moments later, I was back in the waxworks, the butler approaching me menacingly down the hallway. As before, my experience points and level were reset to 0.
        

If anyone has an explanation for this, I'd appreciate hearing it.

        
I immediately leapt into the Jack the Ripper waxwork and found myself on the streets of Victorian London, over the body of Jack's latest victim. This one is clearly going to offer a new challenge--avoiding patrolling bobbies and mobs of Londoners on the streets. Every time one manages to enter my square (or I blunder into theirs), it's an immediate death. I still prefer it to the tripwires in the pyramid.
         

The Met has come a long way since then.

                
By now, it's clear that Waxworks mostly fails as an RPG, and what we have here is not a hybrid but an adventure game with "RPG elements." A few years ago, I wouldn't have known the difference. Now I realize that a good hybrid manages to preserve what people enjoy about both genres. On the RPG side, it offers a fully-realized combat, equipment, and character development system. It doesn't just toss in hit points and experience points.
      
That means that to the extent that I'm enjoying Waxworks, it's mostly for its adventure elements. So far, most of the puzzles have been relatively fair, particularly with the optional Boris-head hint system, and I've had some moments of satisfaction figuring them out. The graphics are well-done and immersive, though on the sound side the developers put too much effort into the music (which is era-appropriate, atmospheric, and, for me, as usual, turned off) and not enough into sound effects, which mostly only occur during combat.

         

Unless the game pulls the rug out from under me with additional unlocked scenarios, it looks like I'm already half done with this one. I'll try to finish it up in one more.

Time so far: 10 hours